Boma - Regular Meeting

We're going to call the Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting for September 8, 2026 to order. We apologize for being a little late. We had a lot more discussion in the work session on an item we needed to talk about. So we're going to call the roll. Alderman Barnhill. Here. Alderman Blanton. Here. Alderman Caesar. Here. Alderman Peterson. Here. Alderman Berger. Present. Alderman Brown. Present. Alderman Potts. Present. Alderman Vice Mayor Baggett. Present. And the mayor's here, so everybody's here tonight. We're going to start with invocation. Alderman Barnhill, if you'll do that, I'll lead the

Would you bow, please? Heavenly Father, we come to you in prayer tonight. Thank you for this great country and this great nation that we live in. And for all the many freedoms and blessings that we have. We know that we are truly a blessed nation with freedoms that many, many other countries do not have. And the freedom of meetings. the freedom of speech, all those are freedoms that we should cherish because there are many places that do not have those freedoms. We ask your blessings upon the first responders. for the city of Franklin. We know that they are there for us when we need them. We t

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. And next tonight, we want to honor Tom Marsh, who's retiring. And I'd ask Tom and his wife, Michelle, to come up, and we'll read this proclamation. Whereas the city of Franklin wishes to recognize Tom Marsh for more than 25 years of dedicated service, distinguished by leadership, integrity, meticulous attention to detail, and an unwavering commitment to strengthening the partnership between the city and

Okay, I have no citizen comments cards. Good job.

I have no citizen comments card. We'll move on to consent agenda and all items under the consent agenda are deemed to be non-controversial and routine in nature by the governing body. They'll be approved in the committee or staff by one motion of the governing body. We're looking at items number 9 through 16. I would entertain a motion.

Second. Thank you. Second by Alderman Caesar. Any discussion? Ready to vote. Alderman Barnhill. Yes. Alderman Blanton. Yes. Alderman Caesar. Yes. Alderman Peterson. Yes. Alderman Berger. Yes. Alderman Brown. Yes. Alderman Potts. Yes. Vice Mayor Baggett. Yes. Passes unanimously. Next, we'll go to consideration of changes in the agenda and setting the agenda. Is there any modifications that need to occur or changes in order? If not, I would consider a motion to accept the agenda as printed. So moved. Thank you. Second. Second by Oliver Potts. Any discussion? Seeing none, ready to vote. Alderman

Alderman Blanton? Yes. Alderman Caesar? Yes. Alderman Peterson? Yes. Alderman Burger? Yes. Alderman Brown? Yes. Alderman Potts? Yes. Vice Mayor Baggett? Yes. Passes unanimously. Are there any communications from the Williamson County Commission? I see no one here. We'll go on to miscellaneous reports, and I'll start out the miscellaneous reports, if I might. Having just returned from two of our sister cities, with a delegation of 25 people, which also included Alderman Brown, who is on the sister cities committee. We successfully completed the signing of a new sister city in Spain, Ciudad Rodr

No, I think you summarized it really well. And I think some of those conversations about exchanging companies that we had were great. Some of the, like in Spain and their entrepreneur center and ours. I think even exchanging firefighter training opportunities, it begins with students, but it goes far beyond that. And I would just say to all the citizens out there, even if you don't think that there's a direct benefit to you, to the city, remember you're part of a community. There's a lot of kids out there that are benefiting from those exchanges and that there's a reach of diplomatic relations

And I would mention that the Consul General of Germany was – at the celebration night, and he came back for the opening of the exhibit. I don't think he's ever been to Tennessee, but I think we're going to stimulate his interest in maybe coming in the future. Yeah, so I think this would be a great time for commercial. Sister Cities Board is constantly looking for new people to be on that board and work into leadership. And so if you're listening tonight, have an interest in being part of Sister Cities, just please reach out to me and I'll make sure that that group gets your name. So any other

Thank you. Any other miscellaneous reports?

Sounds good. Any other miscellaneous reports? If not, we'll go to approval of the minutes from the August 25th, 2026 work session and Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting. Is there a motion? Thank you, Alderman Peterson. Second. Thank you, Alderman Barnhill. Any discussion? Any changes? Seeing none, Alderman Barney, how do you vote?

Alderman Blanton? Yes. Alderman Caesar? Yes. Alderman Peterson? Yes. Alderman Berger? Yes. Alderman Brown? Yes. Alderman Potts? Yes. Vice Mayor Baggett? Yes. Passes unanimously. We'll now go, there is no old business to consider, so we'll go to new business, which is a public hearing consideration resolution. 2026-57, amending the Franklin First United Methodist Church PUD subdivision to extend the vested rights for the property located south of Mack Hatcher Parkway, west of Daniel McMahon Lane, located at 110 Aldersgate Way.

Does anybody want to speak to this body? If not, I'm going to close the public hearing and entertain a motion.

Second by Alderman Peterson. Thank you. Any discussions? Alderman Caesar.

I think this is a perfect example of what we talked about in the work session today and having a representative from this body be able to cover from this property be able to come and explain the justification. The first question that jumps out to me is why two years? Why not three? Typically if we extend the vesting it's they're asking for the three-year vestment and maybe there's a justification or a rationale behind that and we just don't know. I don't know. Maybe Joey knows. So I have those questions. I also, given the light of discussions we've also had tonight about the potential shift ma

Do you have the date that the vesting expires? Yes, it's October 10th of this year. Vice Mayor, your recommendation.

I want to give... With all due respect to my fellow aldermen, this is about as straightforward of a vesting extension as we're ever going to see. I mean, and look at us. With all due respect, look at us. That's why I wanted a little bit more card rails on what we do. It doesn't matter what we think or what Williamson Medical might do with our decision right here whether or not we're going to extend this. It doesn't matter a hill of beans. I mean, truly, it's not our job to worry about that. It isn't. That's the county's job. They have figured all that out with the church. So if the county didn

And I'll tell you what, because I sat and watched them. Historic Zoning dealt with this for about a year.

About a year. Oh, yeah, it did. It was almost a year curating this, and it's going to look spectacular. It's a very nice-looking ambulance facility. But, you know, again, this is great. It's a historic preservation overlay, but... I think we need to move forward with this right here. Alderman Barnhill.

Yeah, I think Alderman Baggins hit the nail on the head. I think what we are, unfortunately, you know, and I want to see the applicant come before us. But this is not the one because this is, we've already approved this and this, the word is not out. I don't think you would have gotten the word to them that they had to be here tonight to ask for the extension. And Alderman Baggett, the proper term is with all due respect. What did I say? With all due respect. Yeah. I heard that several times years ago.

Any other comments? Ready to vote? Alderman Barnhill? Yes. Alderman Blanton? Yes. Alderman Caesar? Yes. Alderman Peterson? Yes. Alderman Berger? Yes. Alderman Brown? Yes. Alderman Potts? Yes. Vice Mayor Baggett? Yes. Passes unanimously. Item 6 is Ordinance 2025-19, an ordinance to rezone. 20.33 acres from the State Residential ER District and Light Industrial District Plan PD, 9.2 per 75,000 district for the property located east of Franklin Road, north of Harpeth Industrial Court located at 318 Franklin Road, 1117, 1121, and 1123 Harpeth Industrial Court. Established public hearing on October

Thank you There's our motion Second Seconded by Alderman Burger. Any discussion? Alderman Brown.

Just a quick comment. My comment on the traffic is I would like you to bring something back on, and I would like us to think about road improvement. Here's the thing. Regardless of whether or not all that traffic's going to the factory or not, regardless if it's Liberty or Franklin Road, Google Maps still sends you down Franklin Road. There's still a lot coming down Franklin Road. And a lot has changed with hotels coming in and factory growth. Middle 8 now is moving forward. There's just been a lot. There's a lot more going on in that space. And we know there's a lot more coming in and on. And

Alderman Caesar. I would just say there's a reason there's three readings for items like this. My vote of support is not necessarily a vote of long-term support. There's still quite a few bridges that I think we need to cross in order for this project to make sense for our community in that area. I think that the factory district is an important part of the future of Franklin. I think the one thing that we could try to control here is how we make it more convenient for people who are riding by car. And I didn't make this comment earlier, so I apologize for taking a couple extra minutes today.

I agree with everything Gov said. I do think I want this. This is kind of a bit of a vision that's broadcast for the factory district. It's very important that it gets done right. And I think part of that is that it gets done in the right order. And this is not anything new. I've talked to the folks about it. This is a big deal. And I really think that what they're doing to save the Redan is amazing. Connectivity is key. This thing works best when we have that north-south connection. The applicant does have property, has most of the property, a lot of the property on that side. I want this to

Here's what I've heard. I've heard from Mayor Moore and a lot of these same, and I've heard from Alderman Blanton, a lot of the same themes. And we can vote for this next one and move it forward, but then there needs to be, I think, some more substantial discussion around the development plan. Okay. which maybe a month in a work session can do it. But I would put forward the 13th, and I would withdraw if there's other conversation that would... Is there a second to the motion to defer?

Thank you, Alderman Brown. Discussion on the deferral?

And I'd be open to having another, because here's what happens. If we go ahead, if we just vote and don't defer the full process, then your public hearing is going to be on something that the public isn't even aware of. We've seen this before. But the public hearing is on the night we have the discussion of the changes that we would like to be making on the development plan. I think putting some more space gives the public more time to respond and giving another work session in the middle. This is important enough to have that conversation. I don't want to have that again where we have to doub

Okay, you got a motion to defer. Other comments? Alderman Peterson.

Well, we would be deferring the first reading to the 13th, so then the public hearing would then be the following month. So it would give the public the full month to review any changes that are made. Yes. It pushes everything a month. If you recall during Harlan, we had this situation, and we were in some ways legally forced to or recommended to do it a whole other month because the changes weren't able to be made public because during the work session. I'm trying to avoid that.

Okay. Any other discussion on the motion to defer? We're ready to vote. Alderman Barnhill, did you want to make a comment?

Yeah. I don't disagree with what we're discussing. What I do disagree is that that can be handled as the schedule is right now. We vote tonight. We've got a public hearing at the next meeting. You've got an opportunity to put it on work session then and cover anything and everything that you need to cover on that. I won't support the... deferral simply because I think within the process of what we've gotten, we just got through spending 30 minutes discussing what the state says they want us to do and approve a project within 60 days of whatever it is, this and that, submittal. And I'm not sure

And I might make the comment that a lot of what I said was based on the fact that we didn't have all the information that we needed and the applicant has said that he felt pretty confident whenever staff came forward that we'd have a better understanding. So anyway, you ready to vote on the deferral? Alderman Barnett.

We're voting on the deferral to October the 13th, 2026. Alderman Barnhill. No. Alderman Blanton.

Alderman Potts. Yes. And Vice Mayor Baggett.

The motion passes 6-2. We'll now go to item number 7, which is ordinance 2026-19, an ordinance demanding certain sections of the Franklin Municipal Code relative to e-bicycles and play vehicles. Is there a motion?

Thank you. All in favor? Seconded. I'll second. Alderman Caesar, any discussion? Yes. Alderman Brown.

I do have some edits that need to be made. Some of it's just for some consistency and some cleanup and then a couple of questions. On number two, we say e-bikes in bike lanes. We say 16... We state the age, but it really should be 16 and over or at least 16, not over 16. That would assume 17 or above. So just a little cleanup on the language on number two. 16 or over. So it should be 16 and over and or at least 16 years of age. Number four, just for the sake of clarity, a question on number four. We say not allowed. Should we add prohibited language, not just follow the law? I know Emotos and

I also received comments, and I think I appreciate staff putting this on here tonight, and the urgency was warranted. I do think there are a lot of quick and easy things. I think a deferral is something we should do on this just to get this cleaned up and not rely on the four motions. The signage on the multiuse path I do think is worthy of additional discussion. Because I think there could be some mixed opinions. And I think that on these, we're not talking about the Emotos, which are the little things that look like little dirt bikes. Motorcycles, yeah. That's motorcycles. They're already no

Alderman Burger seconded and you can address the deferral.

As we think about deferring this, I'm going to pontificate, but more briefly. The only other recommendation I would want us to include as we think about deferral is we don't talk about e-scooters and helmets. And I'm of the belief that if you're under 16 and you're riding one of these things, you should probably wear a helmet. And if you don't, then we need to have a regulation there to help. guide parents that make those decisions and riders that make those decisions.

Okay, we have a motion to defer. Is there any other discussion about the motion to defer? Ready to vote. Alderman Barnhill. No. Alderman Blanton. Yes. Alderman Seaton. Yes. Alderman Peterson. Yes. Alderman Berger. Yes. Alderman Brown. Yes. Alderman Potts. Yes. Vice Mayor Baggett. Yes. Referral passes 7-1. Yeah. Item 8 is City of Franklin Contract 2026-0094 with Franklin Noon Rotary Club for Rotary Plaza at Jim Warren Park. I know this one will not be deferred.

Is there a second by Alderman Brown? Any discussion? Alderman Barnhill? Yes. Alderman Blanton? Yes. Alderman Peterson? Yes. Alderman Brown? Yes. Alderman Potts? Yes. And Vice Mayor Baggett, how would you vote? Thank you. Passes unanimously. Is there any other business to be discussed tonight? If not, I would entertain a motion by Alderman Blanton. I move that we get out of here.